Nightfall (Devil's Night 4)

My knee bobbed up and down under the table. “Would you like more salt?” I asked, lacing my voice with so much sugar I wanted to gag.

I reached for the shaker, but he interrupted. “No,” he said. “Thank you.”

I dropped my hand and continued eating.

“How was your day?” he inquired.

I looked at his fingers wrapped around his fork. He’d stopped eating, his attention on me.

I swallowed. “Good. We, um…” My heart raced, the blood pumping hot through my body. “We had an interesting discussion in lit,” I told him. “And my science report is—”

“And swim practice?”

I fell silent.

Just tell him. Get it over with. He’ll find out eventually.

But I lied instead. “It was good.”

I always tried to hide behind a lie first. Given the choice between fight or flight, I flew.

“Was it?” he pressed.

I stared at my plate, my smile gone as I picked at my food. He knew.

His eyes burned a hole into my skin, his voice like a caress. “Pass the salt?” he asked.

I closed my eyes. The eerie calm in his tone was like the feeling before a storm. The way the air charged with the ions, the clouds hung low, and you could smell it coming. I knew the signs by now.

Reaching over, I picked up the shaker, slowly moving it toward him.

But I knocked his glass instead, his milk spilling onto the table and dripping over the side.

I darted my eyes up to him.

He stared back, holding my gaze for a moment, and then shoved the table away from him.

I popped to my feet, but he grabbed my wrist, yanking me back down to my seat.

“You don’t rise from the table before me,” he said calmly, squeezing my wrist with one hand, and setting his glass upright before taking my water and moving it in front of his plate.

I winced, my glasses sliding down my nose as I fisted my hand, the blood pooling under the skin because he was cutting off my circulation.

“Don’t you ever leave this table without my permission.”

“Martin…”

“Coach Dorn called me today.” He stared ahead at nothing, slowly raising my water to his lips. “Saying you quit the team.”

The unbuttoned cuff of my white uniform shirt hid his hand, but I was sure his knuckles were white. I started to twist my wrist because it hurt, but I immediately stopped, remembering that would just anger him more.

“I didn’t say you could quit,” he continued. “And then you lie about it like an idiot.”

“Martin, please…”

“Eat your dinner, Em,” he told me.

I stared at him for a moment, reconciling my head, once again, to the fact that it was going to happen no matter how hard I tried to stop it.